The Centre for Comparative Studies of the Faculty of Letters (University of Lisbon) supervises and develops its activities within three main areas, without dismissing other eventual interdisciplinary connections which are essential to the advance of the scientific work.

• Intercultural Studies, including the study of travel literature, utopian texts, and translation; European Literary and Cultural Studies, privileging the importance of the Portuguese situation within the wider European framework without neglecting Lusophone connections; Intersemiotic Studies, including the investigation of the relations between literary discourse and other artistic practices such as film, theatre, painting, and architecture.
• Literary and Cultural European Studies, considering the Portuguese geopolitical and cultural position within the wider European framework, the focus will be placed on the European context, both synchronically and diachronically, although not neglecting Lusophone connections, as well as the significance of the West/East polarity.
• Interart Studies, including the investigation of the relations between literary discourse and other artistic practices such as film, theatre, painting, and architecture (adaptation, illustration, "ekphrasis"). This research is breaking new scientific ground within the Portuguese context, contributing to closing the gap in this particular field of study. Coordinator: Helena Carvalhão Buescu. Academic advising committee: Susan Bassnett (University of Warwick), Theo D'haen (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), Vítor Manuel de Aguiar e Silva (Universidade do Minho), João Almeida Flor (Universidade de Lisboa).

     The Centre follows the organisational and management procedures set up by FCT: a scientific director, who works closely with all the researchers, namely with the directors of the ongoing projects; a scientific board, which meets and is heard every time there are questions of scientific policy to be decided; an external advisory board, composed by four elements (two from different Portuguese research units; two from foreign European universities). This structure, at the same time stable and flexible, has proven to be adequate to develop CEC's activities and open up to different projects in the future.
     Without loosing sight of a disciplinary specificity, which brings together all of its members, CEC is especially interested in pursuing what has been its major goal: establishing a powerful scientific network in comparative studies in Portugal, and therefore connecting different areas that, although being related, have not yet found systematic institutional sites for their growth. The Groups now active (PROFILE, THELEME, INTIMACY, UTOPIA, DISTRAE, and MORPHE) all reflect the way CEC's activities highlight the diverse, but also extremely fertile scientific ties that we try to establish and develop, with the strong conviction that scientific knowledge is best pursued with an open, however disciplinary oriented, agenda.